Break Your Silhouette For “Spot And Stalk”

Almost all the hunting I make is “spot and stalk”, with roe deer even more often “Walk and Stalk” in which you walk through the forest until you spot the animal, which is typically almost at shooting distance. For being successful, is a must that you break your silhouette in order to detect the animals before they detect you.

For this purpose, one thing it has been much more effective for me, is to use macro pattern camos, which really break your silhouette at any distance. Sometimes with more classic camo patterns, which have a high detail level, they look great at close distances, but as soon as you get farther than 30 yards you cannot see the detail and it all looks like one brown piece.

PSE’s Pedro Ampuero Hunting

My philosophy is to focus more on not looking like a human, than trying to look like a tree. Animals relation the humans to some vertical lines which an average height etc.. Trying to break those lines is the key, specially the lines made by our shoulder and head. For this I use a ghillie hat, but I just leave it over my shoulders, to unify the shape of my head and shoulders. Using a typical cowboy hat is also a great way of breaking that shape.

PSE’s Pedro Ampuero Face Paint

The last important thing is to camo your lighter parts, like hands and face. Animals spot our white face as good as we spot the white parts of deer in the woods. We all know our life would be much harder if deer wouldn’t have white patches on the tail area. For that I typically use a facemask, or pain my face when the weather is warmer. I also use thin gloves for my hands, measuring, drawing the bow, glassing, etc.. All involves hand movement, and it is always easily detected by deer.

PSE’s Pedro Ampuero

It would be great to know your own experiences. Hope you find it of interest, and good luck all in the mountains!
Pedro Ampuero

Pedro is a mechanical engineer by trade and a bowhunter by heart. He is the co-founder of the blog AdventurousBowhunter.com and Cazandoconarco.es and has written many articles for the hunting industry and currently collaborates with the most prestigious companies on the industry.